“A curriculum is the means by which the experience of attempting to put an educational proposal into practice is made publicly available. It involves both content and method, and in its widest application takes account of the problem of implementation in the institutions of the educational system.” (Stenhouse, 1975). This definition of curriculum shows the availability of implementing educational proposal in the education institutions. Therefore, due to the guiding effect of the curriculum, constructing a suitable and sustainable curriculum is essential for the educational system of a country. In China, with the transition and development of the economic and political system, Suzhi jiaoyu, usually translated into English as “quality education”, is regarded as an antidote to the examination-oriented education (yingshi jiaoyu) (Kipnis, 2006). “This model focuses on all-round development and strongly demands to liberate students from their heavy study burden generated from exam-oriented education.”(Guan,2007). And “it represents modern trend of student-centered and inquiry-based education” (Dello-lacovo, 2009).
From the perspective of constructivism, a new curriculum must be based on a new perspective, but the changing of social ideology is difficult and slow. Chinese traditional mode of delivery is teacher-centered and text-oriented. Chinese teachers have absolute authority in class. Due to the traditional ideology which dominates the mind and affects the perspective of Chinese teachers, the real teaching objectives are distorted. Despite this situation, many teachers still are willing to improve themselves and transform the traditional examination-oriented curriculum to the quality one. Nevertheless, teachers are facing many challenges from curriculum, students and themselves as well.
The implementation of Quality Education
a.Background
With the international competition becoming fiercer, many countries, especially the developed ones, engage in the revolution of the basic education. Because basic education is the most important stage of the learning life, which can form the learning habits and ideology of students. And with the expansion of the ‘knowledge economy’, creative talents are more crucial for the national power than before (Pan, 2001). Therefore, cultivating the creative talents becomes a priority target. However, to some degree, traditional Chinese educational system is not beneficial to fostering creative ability of students. Because it emphasizes on the rigid memorization and all the contents of the curriculum are to prepare for the examination. In order to get a good grades and enter a good school, students have to do excessive exercises repeatedly and follow the textbooks and teachers mechanically. At the same time, as the assessment of teachers’ performance is based on their students’ examination results, examination-oriented teaching approach and curriculum design are inevitable?(Lo, 2000). Therefore, transforming the pedagogy and assessment of Chinese educational system is necessary and essential. And changing the basic understanding of the curriculum is a premise. Government and schools should know that learning is not only for examination, but for improving and forming the cognitive and academic ability, as well as moral and political rectitude, physical well-being (Lo, 2000). Implementing quality education does not mean to cancel examination, because, given the current social situation of China, examination is the most effective way to select merit students, but this does not mean that the cost is making students become ‘exam machines’. Government and schools should give teachers more training to help them change the traditional ideology and realize the benefits of the new teaching model.
b.A case of Quality Education in China
There is a case about the implementation of Quality education. This is a primary school in Chengdu and I interviewed my college classmate who is an English teacher in this primary school.
There are some Q&A about the challenges she met in the implementation of the Quality education.
1.How does the class model change?
The class model is transformed from teacher-centered to student-centered. In the class, teacher try to guide students to find the answer by themselves. Teachers will not tell the answer to students directly.
2.How does the content of class change?
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This is the brief flow of a course. In the course, teacher try to give students more space to express themselves by asking many questions about the contents of the course. Moreover, using multimedia is a better way to attract the attention of students and help students understand the contents vividly. Comparing traditional model, the new one can help students develop their creative ability and stimulate the interests of students.
3.How does the assessment change?
Score does not exist in student’s school report. And secondary school will not only refer to the score of entrance examination, but also will select students in light of their performances in examinations before graduate.
4.Do you meet challenges in the implementation of Quality education? And what are they?
Yes. Firstly, although teachers try to use new teaching model, but because of the large number of students in each class, teacher always feel helpless. Second, the scores of students will affect the promotion of teachers, so teachers still more focus on improving the score of students. Third, some parents are not very cooperative and the support of government is still not enough, such as low income.
c.Discussion
From this case, there are obvious changes in teaching model. Teachers do not simply tell the answers to students directly and ask them to memorize, instead, they tend to ask some related questions about the curriculum to guide students to find the answers by themselves. At the same time, teacher tends to divide students into several groups to study. These changes are beneficial for cultivating creativity and group learning abilities of students. Moreover, the use of modern technology can make the academic knowledge more vivid. This change releases the pressure of students from rote learning and stimulates their interests about the academic knowledge. Besides, changing the entrance requirements provides students more chance to enroll in good schools. However, problems still exist.
Firstly, teachers often feel difficult to control the class well due to the limited time and energy each teacher can spare, because quality education requires teachers to transform the teaching model from teacher-centered to student-centered, which is more time-consuming and unpredictable than whole-class lecturing, and teacher-centered manner can be easier to accomplish the required teaching tasks (Alexander, 2000; Kennedy, 2005). And quality education requires teachers to master the modern technology skills to help teaching. However, the reality of the large number of students in Chinese class cannot change easily as a result of the large population base and limited states’ budget. Some teachers believe that they will implement the quality education more easily and efficiently, if the class size becomes manageable and clearer and more coherent guidelines about curriculum and assessment are provided. And to some degree, knowledge and guidance are not the best avenues for altering teaching practices, but most analysts conclude instead that past efforts to provide additional knowledge and guidance have been insufficient. Therefore, teachers are usually regarded as the key block to the practice of student-centered methods (Wang, 2011). Therefore, improving the professional competence of teachers is crucial and practical, as well as guaranteed teachers’ training is also necessary and essential.
In other aspect, most teachers are not satisfied with the income. After spending much time and energy on works, most teachers still worry about their meager salaries. At the same time, teachers receive subsidies according to the teaching hours and students’ score is the most important determinant for promotion. As a result, teachers have to subsidize their lives through other avenues. When teachers’ basic right cannot be guaranteed, even though they want to change their concepts and implement the new model, they will continually use the more efficient method to improve the score of students in a short period of time, and sometimes, constant exercises can achieve this goal more easily. Therefore, government need to give them more support and create better conditions to help teachers implement new teaching model.
Conclusion
Teachers always play the key role in educational revolution. They are the organizer, facilitator, observer and valuator of the curriculum activities. A new educational policy is made by government, but teachers usually do not understand the real intention of reformers deeply. As a result, reformers cannot receive the desirable outcomes while teachers feel tired and helpless. No teachers do not want to become better, but it is not easy when they are asked to transform some ideologies that stayed in their mind for several decades. Chinese teaching philosophy is deeply affected by Confucianism which believes that teacher is the center of curriculum. However, with the development of society, modern teaching method requires the center of curriculum should be students. Thus, teachers have to accept the concepts of and understand a new philosophy of curriculum. At this point, government support and effective training are very essential.
The treatment of teachers is also a problem. As a result of the large population and regional disparity in China, gaps between urban and rural regions always exist. Many teachers complaint the unbalance between salary and work load. Providing salary commensurate with the efforts is an effective way to build better faculty. Therefore, improving the treatment of teachers is very important.
Changing the concepts and understanding of curriculum is not an easy work. Although quality education has been implemented for several years, its ideal effect hasn’t not been achieved yet as examination-oriented teaching approach still maintains a dominant role in China’s current education system. Teachers as the key role in an educational reform always meet many problems. They need support from government. Absolutely, the long-term political and economic stability and development of a country are determinants of this change since it influences teacher’s motivation and attitude when implementing teaching activities.
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